Please bear with me, I’m trying something new.

We Don’t Matter

If you consider the grand scheme of things, we humans don’t matter. On the physical scale, we as individuals are just one person on a planet with billions. The Earth is one small planet in a potentially infinite universe. Zooming out, our existence here and now has no meaning and no consequences. On a temporal scale, humanity has existed for a tiny fraction of the Earth’s lifetime, and our own lifespan is only a fraction of the time humanity has been around.

We are nothing.

Interlude: Humans are a Coincidence

We are very lucky that we even exist. On the individual level, one tiny change in the history of our ancestors would have lead to a different world where we either don’t exist at all or are different people. On a larger scale, humanity’s existence itself is a huge coincidence. A slight change in the history of the world could have meant that humans never came to be. One unfortunate earthquake and we wouldn’t be here. It is unclear how the chances of life on any given planet are (probably they are already infinitely low because all the circumstances have to be right), but even just on our planet, the chances of living beings developing into us are minuscule. The Earth could have existed for billions of more years without a conscious life form coming up.

We Are All There Is

From an individual point of view, we are all that matters. From my perspective, the end of my life and the end of the universe can’t be differentiated. As soon as my consciousness blips out of existence, I can’t tell whether it was just me or the whole world, because the one who could know doesn’t exist anymore. No matter our circumstances, simply the fact that we are aware and that we exist at all is something we can be grateful for. Because for us, existing or not existing is all that matters.

We are everything.

With this post, I simply wanted to try something different. As you noticed, there is no specific point I want to make. This was not a buildup to something else. I didn’t even make an effort of putting more fluff around the words (something I have a hard time with and that is probably not necessary anyway). I merely think that considering things from completely opposite perspectives is fascinating. You can apply this to all kinds of things in life, on many different levels. In physics, you have general relativity and quantum mechanics. In the business world, Gary Vaynerchuk talks about the notion of Clouds and Dirt. When you start learning something new, it makes sense to have a grasp of the big picture, but it’s also essential to learn the basics and know them well.

I also want to emphasize that this isn’t meant to be depressing in any way. I actually think it’s the opposite: It feels freeing. There are so many things we worry about, but none of that really matters. It doesn’t mean we can’t have an opinion on how things could be better in the world, or that we shouldn’t work to improve ourselves, but simply that there’s no benefit in worrying about it.

Reading through this, I am aware that 1) this post is very weird, and 2) it isn’t particularly well structured or well written. But I feel like trying new and different things is what makes you grow. Please don’t hold back giving me your opinion on this piece or on my posts in general. Even if our opinions don’t overlap, it is still helpful to know that those opinions exist. It is always helpful to see things from someone else’s perspective, but it is not always easy to get there.

Thank you for reading my blog! Expect a more normal post tomorrow. 😅